


Broken down

by SuperMazeWolf



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Damaged Tony Stark, Emotional Hurt, Emotionally Repressed, M/M, Prosthetics, Protective Bucky Barnes, Sorry Not Sorry, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark's broken, Turning into an android, Worried Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 13:21:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7316854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperMazeWolf/pseuds/SuperMazeWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony's been trying his best. He's smiled, he's answered and shown up, he's saved multiple lives multiple times but it's just piling and piling.<br/>He can fix any machine, but he can't fix himself.<br/>So he has only one solution.</p>
<p>Then the Winter Soldier comes along, and Tony feels as if his life is being pieced together just a bit.</p>
<p>(Based on a tumblr post where Tony's just numbed and he starts making himself into a machine, replace a leg with mechanical prosthetics and moving up. I added a twist, though, so that Bucky shows up. I'm Winteriron trash.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, it's happening.

The idea comes to him at a meeting, when he's discussing designs for new prosthetics people are demanding from Stark Industries. It makes him flinch visibly, makes him get an uneasy feeling in his stomach, and he shakes it off because it's just stupid.

But it just stays in the dark corner of his mind, just sits and waits in the shadows.

It pounces again when Tony's in his lab, fixing his suit gauntlet. He's making small adjustments here and there, and he nearly drops his screwdriver when it jumps on him because _it's stupid, and it'll kill him._ It makes him freeze when he realizes that it didn't occur to him that it's just _wrong,_ it makes him freeze when he realizes he didn't even worry about the most obvious reason not to do it.

It just keeps coming, after parties when Tony's on the roof of the tower, sipping his Scotch and he squeezes his eyes shut because _he's not gonna do it._ It comes to him when he's alone, drunkenly gripping onto the corner of his desk and sobbing, crying his eyes out, but he shoves it back down because he knows he can do better, he can't be that broken, can he?

It comes to him when he's staring at Dummy, watching as the robot moves around, care-free, just going about its business and not caring about what the world wants or what they expect. It comes to him when he's talking to JARVIS, about how he can improve his arc reactor. It comes to him when he's sitting on his bed, tugging at his hair with wide eyes because it _won't stop._

He feels his breathing become uneven, feels his heart pounding and the blood in his ears roaring, and he sees the new prototype of a prosthetic he's been jokingly working on, sees the numbing antidote he's made for hospitalized patients who're there because of him, and sees the chemical that stops blood circulation in a certain area, sees all these things and he just stops.

He can fix himself, he realizes, no one will yell at him or blame him for doing something that he couldn't prevent, hate him for trying to help, and it all just clicks and before he understands what he's doing, he's pulling his shorts up, he's tightening a belt around his left calf and locking it, he's injecting the numbing antidote and chemical that stops blood, and he's ordering JARVIS with a flat voice to get him the strongest lazer they have.

JARVIS tells him that he shouldn't, that he can't, but Tony repeats what he said with a cold voice and waits, waits until the only thing he trusts goes silent and adjusts the lazer onto the place where Tony's pointing to, and he watches as his leg falls off without any pain or blood, and he reaches for the undeveloped but useful prosthetic he's been working on, and starts adjusting.

It doesn't scare him that he doesn't feel any remorse.  
It doesn't scare him that he doesn't feel any pain.  
He's fixing himself, he knows it.  
So he works.

He works for hours, works until the nerves adjust and connect to the prosthetic, works until he ignores the leg still on the floor, blood pooling around it. He flexes his leg with blank eyes, then nods his approval and starts working up. 

He locks himself in the room, blocks all calls and requests, puts his room in a lockdown state and tells JARVIS to keep anyone and everyone out.  
He moves up to his left arm, he's gonna figure out how to fix his waist and side, but he fiddles around and finds the arm prototype hidden under his desk. He takes his shirt off, and he rubs his left shoulder. He does it again, takes his dirty arm out and puts in a neat, clean and pure machine that can help rather than make mistakes. 

Time fies by, but he doesn't care. He ignores his growling stomach or the queasy feeling he gets, ignores the blood on the floor and ignores the logic that he shouldn't be alive, ignores the fact that it's impossible to survive with that much blood loss, but fuck it, he's Tony Stark. His leg feels light, his arm feels nice and snug and that's all he cares. He's fixing himself. He feels good. He doesn't care, and he feels almost happy because he doesn't feel the emptiness. He feels like he has a purpose. 

"Sir, Captain Rogers is requesting to speak to you." 

"Cancel it. I'm not taking calls." 

There's a long pause, but JARVIS replies. "Yes sir." 

Tony stretches his fingers and tilts his head, admires the silver lining and red circuits and he almost smiles. He touches his chest with the mechanical hand, stares down and keep staring.  
He's fixing himself. 

Then a loud clang makes him turn his head, and blank eyes stare at blank eyes. 

There's a man standing in Tony's room, a mask covering his face, funky armor and a gun in hand. He's staring at Tony with blank, blue eyes and Tony tilts his head again. "Do I need to help you?" Tony asks, and he doesn't feel guilt when his voice isn't full of enthusiasm because he's fixing himself, voice isn't important. 

The man must be an assassin if he snuck into his room while he's in a lockdown state. The man's eyes shift down and lands on the blood on the floor, the tainted body parts and his lips part but there's no shock. "You are like me," the man says, and Tony smiles, humorless. "I'm like you?" Tony asks, opening his hand and looking down at it, "That's great. Do you like being like you?" 

The man stares. "What's your name?" Tony asks, but his voice is crisp again, the hint of emotion from his last few questions gone. "The asset has no name," the man replies. "That's great. Why’re you here?" "The asset needs a new handler." "I'm the handler? You want me to help you?" 

Tony snorts when the man nods stiffly.  
He doesn't know he's crying, not until the man shifts slightly and peers at Tony in confusion. "You are upset," the man notes, and he crouches down and reaches out with a metal hand, brushes liquid from Tony's face. "Why are you upset?" The man asks, but there's something different. He looks worried, but Tony assumes that he's imagining because no one's supposed to worry about him. He's fixing himself, there's no reason why he should feel upset- 

"Why are you upset? Why is there blood? Why are there body parts? Why are you modifying yourself?" The man questions without stopping, and he seems amazed, like questioning is the best thing that's ever happened to him, and Tony slumps forward, rests his cheek on the man's chest but he still feels nothing. 

He pauses when the man uses a flesh hand, a human hand, to brush strands of hair away from Tony's face, and he feels warm. He's leaning on a man he doesn't know anything about but he feels the safest he's been in a while and he's confused. He was fixing himself, why is he feeling now? 

"Why is there blood?"  
Tony feels himself tense. 

Blood. It's inside of his body. Why is there...?  
Tony closes his eyes and exhales shakily. 

What the fuck is he doing to himself? 

"Do me a favor," Tony says quietly, forcing himself to calm down, "Get rid of the... The blood and, God, body parts. Do that for me." And the man nods, moves around silently and Tony's breathing, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5- 

What was he doing? What the hell is he doing now? What's happening? He's fixing himself but something isn't right, no, what- 

He's on his bed the next second, a metal arm applying pressure to his chest firmly, reassuringly and he almost laughs because a man he doesn't know is reassuring him, but he still doesn't know what he did to himself. "I will get you water. Do not get up.  
Something about the mechanic voice makes him feel at ease, and Tony's hand twitches.  
The idea.  
Tony wants to scream and thrash. 

There's a towel on his forehead and small amounts of water dripping onto Tony's lips and he opens his mouth slightly, lets it drip onto his tongue and down his throat. "What date is it?" He whispers, and the man sitting next to him says, "Tuesday. June 28th."  
It was June 26th the last time he checked. 

Tony holds back his scream. _What did he do to himself?_

"What's your name?" Tony asks softly, "What was I doing?" 

"The asset has no name. I am referred as The Winter Soldier at times. You were adjusting a prosthetic onto your arm." "HYDRA?" "Yes." 

Tony opens his eyes and stares up at the man looking down at him with blue eyes, then shuts it. 

He wakes up to Steve yelling frantically, Pepper blabbering and other people saying things he doesn't understand. 

He feels a pang of sadness that the man isn't among the chaos, but he opens his eyes and braces himself for the brightness.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony grips his mechanical arm and looks around the white, empty room, eyes landing on the camera in the corner. He's sitting on a simple bed.  
He's locked in a room because people think he's gone insane, but he knows. He has a mind of his own, he was just momentarily blinded with guilt and self-pity that led to him almost killing himself. 

For some reason, he wants to see the man who helped him.  
The man, the Winter Soldier, he made Tony feel safe back there. He didn't leave him until he had to, and nobody stays for Tony nowadays. It's something he enjoys, but no one listens because they all think they know Tony Stark. They think he's fine, a solid, brick wall that can't be broken down while in reality he's already broken-

The door he didn't see before opens, and a man with blond hair and blue eyes peeks in.  
Tony feels sick to his stomach, and he doesn't know why. He feels even worse when he walks in, and another person with red hair, a woman, follows. He doesn't want to see people, he wants to be left alone. There's a thumping in his ears that won't stop, and his mechanical hand is twitching on his lap. "How're you doing?" The blond asks, and Tony curls his fingers around his ears and presses down, he doesn't want to hear anything. 

Tony's eyes shift down and back up, meets hopeful eyes with blank eyes. "Fine," he says instead of saying 'I feel like you need to leave,' but it's flat and cold, a clear sign that he doesn't want to talk. The man sighs and looks up at the red-haired woman, and the woman leans on the wall and crosses her arms. "Tony, what were you doing back then?" She asks, and Tony frowns slightly, but he doesn't loosen the pressure on his ears. 

"Nothing," Tony says, and the woman snorts.  
"Don't bullshit with us, Stark. Your arm and leg, why are they replaced with machines?"  
Tony stays silent.

-

The asset waits until the red-haired woman and blond haired man leaves.  
He slips through a window, opens the door to the room that they left and quickly disables the camera.  
He sees his handler on a bed, hands curled around his ears.  
His handler looks up and stares, and there's something in his eyes. 

"Why are you here?" The asset asks, and he still finds it amazing, that he can ponder and question without being punished, "Why are you locked in this room?" His handler lifts his head slowly and reaches out weakly with a mechanical hand, and the asset moves forward and lets his handler place metal fingers to his metal arm. "You're here," his handler says, as if it's something out of a dream, "Help me."  
The asset cocks his head.

"Your name," his handler says with a small quirk of his lips, "I'm gonna call you Winter."  
It's all irrelevant to his question, but the asset nods slightly.  
Winter, it feels... Right.

Winter stares at his handler as his lively eyes fade to blankness again, and he tilts his head. "Winter, come here," his handler says suddenly, tugging lightly at his metal arm. Winter complies and steps forward and sits down.  
The handler lets out a shaky sigh and wraps his arms around Winter, and he stiffens.

Winter embraces the man. He doesn't know why, doesn't even know how he does it, but just knows that it's right. "Get me out," his handler says after a while, voice shaky, "I'll fix you up if you get me out of here."  
"You are not well," Winter informs, touching his handler's sweaty forehead with his metal fingers, "You need rest. You have lost a lot of blood. You will not be well for a while." His handler shakes his head but slumps like last time, rests his head on Winter's chest. "I don't care if I'm not well, I've never been well," he mutters quietly, and Winter feels something. 

_Feels._

"Why?" Winter asks, assured at the lack of footsteps or alarms in the hallways. "Everybody says it," his handler says simply, shrugging, "That I kill people. You know how that feels, right? Killing people without meaning to, or wanting to." Winter nods slightly. "They blame it. On me. And I tried stopping them at one point, stop the chaos, but it didn't work." 

His handler is not making any sense. 

"They say I need help," his handler says, "And I drink. I mean, so I drink. Then they say they love me. Then they abandon me after saying that I need help. Say that I need to fix myself, but the only thing I can fix is machines. So, you know. I was having a break down, things happened, and, well, I got my leg and arm removed. But it felt right. And it scared me, reminded me that I actually needed help."  
Winter hooks his hand under his handler's legs and wraps another around his shoulder and hauls him up. His handler is far too light, too light for a typical man even with all the muscle, it's the machines that are making him just a bit more heavier. "Take me to my tower," his handler mumbles, pressing his face in the crook of Winter's neck, "You know where it is, right?" Winter nods. 

"I don't know why I trust you," his handler says suddenly, stopping Winter as he starts to walk, "I don't know why I trust you."  
Winter shakes his head. "I trust you," he says with a quiet voice, and he doesn't know why he says it but he does, "I trust you. I'll take you to your tower." 

And his handler presses closer.

**Author's Note:**

> See ya!


End file.
